Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Let's Start a War at the Whitehouse, Said Wattie One Day

The first release I ever bought by the Exploited was the
1986 cassette,Live at the Whitehouse. I had heard the band a few times on our local
college radio station, and I liked what I heard, so I set out to the music
store to procure whatever Exploited I could get my hands on (which is how one
bought music in the days before downloading).
The store I went to wasn’t well-stocked with anything but pop and heavy
metal, and Live at the Whitehouse was
the only Exploited to be had. As it
stands, it wasn’t a great listening experience, as those who have heard it can
attest to.

If you are familiar with the Exploited, a live album
delivers exactly what you’d expect. The
sound is raw, angry and turns to buzzsaw noise in spots. The release I bought was a full live show and
featured some great songs, including “Let’s Start a War,” “Horror Epics,”
“Wankers,” “I Hate You,” “Dogs of War,” “Sex and Violence,” and “Punk’s Not
Dead.” That’s a satisfying line-up of
classic Exploited songs despite the dodgy sound. Couple that with cover art that shows a
partially destroyed Capitol Building (not the White House, oddly enough) and
you can’t help but capture a young punk’s heart.

The band, which has had roughly 3,859 members through its
years of existence, has always had its share of controversy, and violence
followed many of its shows. (I wasn’t
there when it played Airport City Music Hall in PA, but I heard that white
power skins maced singer Wattie when he took the stage. For those who remember shows at that venue,
skinheads were a constant source of misery, as were the bouncers. The reason
for the attack was Wattie’s anti-American beliefs.) For many, the Exploited has always symbolized
the best and worst of what punk rock was and should be. For me, it was just an energetic, politically
angry band that seemed more interested in slogans than real change. It was entertaining, but nothing I’d formulate
a political philosophy around. (Remember
the Barmy Army?)

Live at the Whitehouse
may have been my first Exploited purchase, but it was far from my last. Sometimes those purchases felt shameful, like
when I would purchase really creepy porn from seedy shops reeking of bleach and
sweat, but others were moments of sheer celebration. Not every release was worthy of the effort it
took to make it, but all of them had moments of sublime chaos. (My own sublime chaos that was linked to the
Exploited came when one of the releases was playing on the car stereo as my
friends and I were engaged in a high speed chase with a cop. We were winning the race, the flashing cop
lights not making the best headway, when we flipped the car. We slid something like 116 feet on the roof
until we hit a boulder. As I spat out
windshield glass, the cop on the scene told us to get away from the car I was
still inside because gas was flooding out and he thought it would explode. The Exploited
continued to play on the stereo.
Surreal.)

These days the band doesn’t much resemble that which it was
in 1986, which is a good thing. Bands
should evolve over time. I’m not sure
that what the Exploited has become is much worth pursuing, but seeing its skull
logo on a shirt still brings a smile to my face even if the new music leaves me
kind of cold. I will say, however, that
the later stuff is far more cohesive and better produced than the band’s
earlier releases. It’s as if the band
took the power of metal and matched it with the anger of punk and came up with
something that works for it. That said,
it doesn’t fully work for me.